Source: Tom Johnston,MEATINGPLACE, 10/29/15

With the U.S. outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza currently under control and almost completely cleaned up, Washington animal health officials are focusing efforts on convincing trading partners to lift restrictions on imports of U.S. poultry.

Nearly all of the 18 countries that imposed a ban of all U.S. poultry have kept those restrictions in place, which amounted to almost $900 million (14 percent of international trade in 2014) in lost trade, Dr. Lisa Ferguson of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Veterinary Services noted here at the National Chicken Council’s annual conference.

And while 100 other trading partners have no restrictions in place, 38 countries have regional restrictions, which cost the industry $4.5 billion — a whopping 69 percent of trade in 2014.

Ferguson said APHIS is busy visiting trading partners in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to update them on the government’s fall avian-influenza plan and discuss issues around vaccination, but more so to emphasize that the U.S. has the outbreak under control and that they should lift restrictions that are not based on the science-based regulations of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). 

“We got encouraging messages from these trading partners,” Ferguson said.

Among those was a softening on initial tough postures on the acceptance of vaccinated birds, she said, noting that trading partners tend to perceive that the use of vaccinations means that the affected country doesn’t have control of it or is masking the disease. Trading partners, however, are becoming more comfortable as the U.S. clarifies its vaccination exit strategy.

Ferguson said the U.S. government’s message to trading partners is that it won’t necessarily use vaccines, but that trading partners allow them as an option in cases such as when an outbreak is spreading rapidly in a high-density poultry area.

The hardest hit areas in the U.S. outbreak were the states of Minnesota and Iowa, essentially the only states where animal health officials continue to finish the cleaning and disinfecting process, Ferguson said. She noted that OIE requires a 90-day period from the completion of that process before trading partners can lift restrictions.

APHIS is trying alternative methods of cleaning and disinfecting affected areas, such as composting, that ostensibly could speed up the approval process by allowing restrictions to be lifted as soon as that method is established.

The first detection of this HPAI outbreak was reported in December 2014, and there were 219 detections reported with the last detection report in June 2015. More than 48 million birds were affected, according to APHIS.

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